


A Stone's Throw Away

by K_Robe



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Civil War, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Steve's Letter to Tony Post-Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 11:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11622192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_Robe/pseuds/K_Robe
Summary: “If you need me, I’ll be there.”Tony Stark is drowning.





	A Stone's Throw Away

Tony Stark doesn’t think things through sometimes. For as smart as he is and as inventive as he can be, he’s often a few apples short of a bushel. He stares at the letter blankly, tapping his foot in rhythm with the the blinking light on the telephone. There’s a temptation, a small part of him, that wants to take out a lighter and burn it up. Just watch it burn. To spite him, to hurt him - but Tony knows the truth even if he doesn’t want to admit it. He’d only be hurting himself. And that’d be the real point, wouldn’t it? Self-harm. Of the psychological variety.

He looks over to the bottle of bourbon that always sits lying by his desk. He knows it’s not healthy to drink. God, after all the crap he went through eight years ago, he should really know better. But he still finds himself pouring a glass, toasting no one, and drinking it down - letting the poison seep into his abdomen.

 _He’s right_ , Tony laments. Rattling around a mansion by himself is lonely. Rhodey is constantly undergoing more surgeries, Nat has disappeared completely, and Vision isn’t someone he’s keen on talking to. There’s no one. _No one_.

The glass hits the desk a little too hard and, for a split second, Tony’s afraid it might have broken and cut his hand. But it doesn’t. He looks a little closer. The glass is cracked. The bourbon’s still inside, moving ever so slightly. But it’s still in there. It’s still contained. The glass is cracked but… it’s still holding together.

Tony curses under his breath. He looks at the phone. Another part of him desperately wants to call, wants to apologize for everything. He doesn’t know if the apology will be accepted, but knowing him… of course, he’d accept the apology. There isn’t a person out there in the world whose apology he wouldn’t accept. Something about that frustrates Tony, maybe even hits him in the gut. He kind of hates it. Because he knows that nothing’s ever quite that simple with him. Forgiving the Winter Soldier for the part that he played in the murder of his parents is something that’s going to take a long time to happen, if it ever does at all. Years, probably.

But Tony can wrong _him_ and he’d forgive him in a heartbeat. He just knows it.

He thinks about the shield slamming into his chest, into the arc reactor.

He remembers how he thought that he was going to go for his neck.

He tries to forget about raising his hands to his face, about ever thinking that the man could actually go as far as to kill him. That he was capable of that.

He feels ashamed.

Tony’s gaze stays with the phone. Life is full of complications. Maybe some things _can_ be this simple. Maybe it _is_ as simple as picking up the phone. As calling him and making sure that things will be okay in the end.

His hand hovers over it.

But he closes his hand, retracting it.

Not yet.

It’s not time.

But when Tony needs him, at least he knows that he’ll come. That he’s just a stone’s throw away.

And that puts a smile on his face.


End file.
